A little over a week after the devMEET in Berlin, all deviants have safely returned home, and many have already uploaded their photos from the day, and shared their experiences through their journals.

The 10th birthdAy bash in Berlin started earlier than August 7 for a lot of the attending deviants - the birthdAy bash proved to be a perfect occasion for a little holiday, and for our operators, this was no exception. Many attendees arrived as early as three days before the meeting, and did some sightseeing, or just enjoyed the city to its fullest. On August 6, `mintyy organised a dinner at an Italian restaurant for about twenty deviants that arrived in Berlin early. After the dinner, some went back to their hotels, others went to local bars and pubs and had fun 'till late at night. I was noted that the power of DIOS / (God) was inside of me by a drunk Greek guy at one of the pubs, and was slapped on my back, legs, and hoisted in the air by the aforementioned Greek guy, to the amusement of present deviants, who, in some cases, broke down in tears of laughter.
The following day, August 7. The operators split up in groups: *Nirelleth ,`mintyy and I went cake shopping for one of the events, while `Anoya and `igy went to Brandenburger Tor to welcome the first deviants. At Brandenburger Tor, we waited until 1:30PM for all deviants to arrive, handed out name badge stickers, and talked with eachother. Deviants were asked to sign t-shirts. Free hugs were given out by some deviants, while others came to the meet in a cosplay outfit, which resulted in many pictures to be taken with tourists.

Once the clock hit 1:30PM, we quickly addressed the group of deviants, which grew to about 60 attendees, told them about our plans for the day and proceeded to pose for our official group shot, made by one of the deviantMOMS.
After the group shot, we walked a short distance to a nice open spot in Tiergarten, where we began the birthdAy bash shenanigans. We started off with a cake design contest. The crowd was divided in to five different groups, and were each given a cake to decorate. Our very own dA related gallery moderator, `ginkgografix, was declared judge on the scene. She judged the cakes based on their looks, and the winning group received deviantART stickers! All of the cake was eaten afterwards, which led to much om nom nom nom'ing.
Our second event was a live featured chat, hosted by `mintyy, with all the present GMs at the devMEET: `Anoya, `ginkgografix, `NikiVandermosten and `Norke. Many original questions were asked, and everybody had a great time. The five deviants with the best, most interesting, or most original questions each got a deviantART lanyard!
After a little break, the group split up in three sections - a photohunt section, lead by `Anoya and `igy, an art class, lead by `Norke, and a deviously lazy group, who felt like doing nothing for an hour or so was the best option. `Anoya about the photohunt:

The photohunt was organized by `igy and myself and was mainly improvising because of the weather and the fact that we had no clue how many people were attending the devMEET and wanted to participate in the hunt.

We decided on random topics, nothing too specific because that could interfere with originality. We took a few gallery's from dA's photography section; Animals, Plants & Nature, Architecture, Abstract, Street/Photojournalism, Portraiture, Macro/Close up and to add a little extra; Symmetry. We thought Nude might've been a little too devious for Germany, so we've skipped that.

Not too many people were participating since most people went away to get some food and drinks or just wanted to relax a bit. Or they forgot their SD-cards, charger, etc
However, the people that did participate were very eager and excited! There were some really awesome shots and `igy and myself had a hard time judging them, but in the end `anmari won! Every person that joined (or walked along because his batteries were dead) got a stressball, and `anmari won a dA birthday mug!

Their pictures might be submitted in the special birthday folder at #europeans.

We had fun! Hope you guys did too!

`Norke about the art class:

The sketching group was bigger then I anticipated. It was a real joy seeing how people wanted to sketch in stead of having a lazy time under the tree. I had no doubt that the group was filled with talent so I stated people shouldn't be afraid of asking tips and tricks to each other. After all, that is what sketching together is all about.

I decided to keep the tension to a minimum, so the group was taken to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and we sat down for a 2 minute talk. People who weren't into sketching on demand were invited to go on a sketchcrawl. Basically they could do whatever they wanted. The others who fancied a dA prize had to make a sketch combining two given themes. They had to combine at least one of the given celebrities (Oprah, George Bush, Mona Lisa, Eddy Murphy, Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp and Lady gaga) and a given daily object (Vibrator, light bulb, toilet paper, party hat, pink cake or a bratwurst) within 1 hour. Like every hour based Themed Art Challenge I promised I wouldn't pay too much attention to techniques, but rather to idea and concept. The Deviants were anxious and started right away. Even when the rain was taking over for a few minutes, They kept on sketching.

In the end, it was ~Yetska with Mona Lisa's smile who took the Birthday mug home.

`mintyy about the deviously lazy group:

The lazy group was actually not that lazy. Half of the group went shopping and the rest was sitting on a blanket eating cookies and drinking juice. When the rest came the talk got more lively and interesting.
Every person from that group got a little souvenir while chatting with eachother.
To get one, people had to raise their hands and catch the souvenirs. Anything more would be way too much effort for the lazy group.

Once we all got back together and finished talking about the activities, about thirty deviants remained, who participated in a trivia. Main prizes in the trivia were eight birthdAy t-shirts and two birthdAy hoodies, supplied by #hq. `mintyy had a lot of educational questions in store for us, but one team really managed to get most of the answers right, and in the end, they won by a landslide.
The official meeting agenda was over after this event, and as many deviants grew hungry, we decided to head to a restaurant. The remaining deviants split up in two groups: one big group went to a Mexican restaurant, while some headed for a Vietnamese restaurant. After the meals were consumed, many went to their hotels to freshen up, and head to a pub to continue the awesome day! Well over twenty deviants came to the pub to resume partying, and went on 'till late in the night.

Some testimonials from operators and attendees:

*Nirelleth (operator): First of all, I really enjoyed everything about the devMeet, the people where very nice and I think our ideas where generally well liked. My personal high light was of course the t-shirts, I loved to see how nearly everyone took part and how creative some people were.
As far as group activities went I really think the Featured chat went well, there were lots of questions asked, most of which were really interesting to hear the answer of. We were a little unsure if it would work out, but it did so very well, so that was a big success.

~Akai-karasu (attendee): I think the best event was probalby the cake-contest, simply because it was absolutely fun to try to make something out of the stuff we had and still make the cake look edible. (Plus, the group I was in won, so of course we enjoyed that.)

Since I somehow ended up hanging out with the folks from the Netherlands and Belgium I definitely met people I'd never would have known without the devmeet. And since they're all really cool and talented people it would be a shame to not have met them.

Q & A with *Anmaril (attendee):
Q: What's the best memory you have of the birthdAy bash?
A: I don't have a specific memory, the whole meeting was great! But I think for me was the opportunity to speak with other artists, see them working (and how they work) was more precious for me than the rest.
Q: Which event on the birthdAy bash did you like the best?
A: The different groups and the dinner afterwards^^
Q: Have you met new people on the birthdAy bash you would otherwise have never met?
A: Indeed, I have, and I didn't had meet such great guys without this event.

We hope you all had a great time, and hope to see you at the next event! A huge thank you goes out to everybody that attended for being awesome, the operators of #europeans for their hard work and #hq for supplying deviously delicious goodies! See you at the next meet!